


Shadows Overhead

by Lynzee005



Series: Moonlight Universe [7]
Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, Christmassy peppermint fluff, F/M, Pure Unadulterated Fluff, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 10:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynzee005/pseuds/Lynzee005
Summary: Nothing is going as planned. They're 4,000 miles from home. There's a blizzard raging outside. And the fight they're fighting might be enough to tear them apart. On top of it all, Christmas is here and there are only two options that Dale Cooper sees as worth pursuing: continue his panicked spiral away from Audrey at a time when it's clear they need each other most...or rally his belief in the love they've had for one another all these years to turn this into a Christmas to remember.





	1. If I Could Only Have You Near

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedemptionByFire (steelneena)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/gifts).



> Dear steelneena - I couldn't believe I got you as my Yuletide recipient. In fact I'm still in shock! But since I know you so well I hope that my story reflects that, and that it's everything you could have ever wanted from your very first AO3 Christmas fic exchange...
> 
> (Main and Chapter Titles borrowed from Gordon Lightfoot's "Song for a Winter's Night")

Dale opened the fridge and set the small foil leftover container on the top shelf, between a half-eaten jar of strawberry jam and a Ziploc bag of onion slices. Light from the open door illuminated the kitchen, the dirty dishes in the sink, the table piled high with books and papers. Like the rest of the small cabin Audrey had been living in for the past four months — with its heaps of blankets and video rental cases strewn about, baskets of folded laundry awaiting the dresser, her laptop computer plugged in and awaiting its owner — it looked entirely lived-in. 

Maybe a little  _ too  _ lived in.

A block of cheese, half a carton of milk, two fresh bison steaks wrapped in butcher’s paper. Dale’s heart sank.

“It’s cold in here,” he said finally.

Audrey was standing in the doorway, and her slow and deliberate movements stood in direct opposition to the thrumming in his own chest. 

“Helps if you don’t stand with the fridge open,” she said softly after a moment. She started to remove her earrings. “I started a fire in the front room. It’ll warm up fast.”

Dale shut the fridge door and shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers as Audrey turned and continued on the bedroom vector she’d been following before he'd interrupted her. He shivered. It  _ was _ cold, inside and out, but he supposed that was par for the course for the twenty-third of December in Alaska. He’d never experienced winter so close to the Arctic Circle before — few people had, he reasoned — and the shock of deplaning at the small airport at three-thirty pm in total darkness, facing temperatures of twenty below and the fiercest snowstorm he’d ever encountered had nearly sent him reeling all the way back to Philadelphia. 

But instead he hired the only vehicle left at the rental agency with snow tires and four-wheel drive and drove to the front door of Audrey’s isolated riverside cabin anyway.

He wasn’t entirely sure why. He hadn’t been invited. It wasn’t part of the plan. 

_But then again_ , he thought, _you_ _didn’t really have a plan, did you?_

The darkened kitchen came into view as his eyes adjusted and he made his way into the hallway. At one end, he saw the bedroom door slightly ajar; Audrey stood at her dresser, shirtless, removing her necklace. In the glow of her bedside lamp, he traced the shadow of her spine up her back; the delicate way it held her body upright, moving with her contortions as she struggled with the clasp at the base of her neck, was mesmerizing. It had always been; watching her was one of his greatest joys, simply because of the way she carried herself, fluidly, like a Chinese calligrapher’s brush filled with ink. He loved the idea of tracing her path through their home as she danced from room to room, leaving nothing but a trail of Chanel No 5 in her wake.

He hadn’t expected a ton of changes in the four months since he’d last seen her, but the few things he did notice made him weak in the knees. Her hair was longer, just about to her shoulders, and the weight of it had loosened the curls that usually clung in a tight halo around her head when she kept it short as she usually did; the thought of running his fingers through it, long like this and waved into loose curls, was almost too much to bear. She’d hate to know he noticed, but she had gained a few pounds. It was to be expected of course, living in a colder climate as a mostly sedentary grad student, and she wore it in the best way—the slight fullness of her hips and the softness that had crept along her jawline made her look... _ different _ .  _ Sexy. _ He’d noticed it at dinner, lit by candlelight at the only restaurant they could get to on account of the blowing snow and poor visibility; his half-eaten lasagna was a testament to how distracted he’d been by just the thought of his hands on her, under covers of down and darkness, learning his way around the newness of her body, reconciling it with the memories of their last time together before she’d left, working to wrest the keening whisper from the back of her throat as he’d only been able to imagine doing in the 134 days since they’d been apart… 

But for now, staring at her dumbstruck through the crack in her door, he felt wrong. It all felt wrong.. Inappropriate. They hadn’t spoken— _ really _ spoken—in nearly a month. How would she feel to know that the first thing he did when he’d arrived, unbidden, at her door was gawk at her in a fit of sexual fantasy?

_ Is that what you really expected would happen?  _ he asked himself, his inner monologue growing increasingly hostile. 

At the same moment, almost as if she could hear the voices inside his head, Audrey turned and gasped, then shut the door until only the barest sliver of light sliced out into the hallway.

He pressed his hands deeper into his pockets, balling them into fists as he entered the living room. The crackling fire was indeed warming up the cabin. Taking off his suit jacket, he laid it over the back of the armchair nearest to the door and took up a seat. His suitcase sat against the wall where he’d left it when he arrived. He honestly didn’t know where he was going to sleep that night.

_ Why is this so awkward? _

“Dinner was nice,” he offered to the half-closed door between him and her. His voice was thin and high and tight in his throat. He cleared it with a rough cough.

“It’s about the only decent Italian restaurant in town,” she said as she turned out the light in her room and emerged into the hallway.  She was in her pyjamas — flannel, new, something he’d never seen before, pale blue with penguins on them. He rubbed his hands against his thighs. “But it just can’t compare with that place we used to go to...you remember the one? Around the corner from our place? Closed down a year after we moved in?”

Dale didn’t have to wrack his brain too hard to find the answer. “Antonio’s,” he smiled.

Audrey chuckled. “Antonio’s,” she said, her voice sweetly reverent. 

“I’m surprised you remember that,” he said.

She’d made her way into the kitchen and was busying herself at the coffee maker. “Are you kidding? His manicotti was  _ to die for _ !” she said. “I guess I’ll always be chasing some memory of that. So far, no one has even come close.”

Dale nodded and stared at the fire. 

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thanks,” he said. “It was a long flight and, uh — well…”

“You sure?” she asked, bending over to look at him through the small window in her wall. “You always have a cup of coffee after dinner.”

He smiled at her but looked away almost as soon as their eyes met. The smile dropped from his face. “We should talk, Aud.”

She sighed — he could see the way she deflated as he said the words — and stopped playing with the ceramic mug in her hand. “It sure was a surprise to see you here,” she said. It was a deflection. He could tell. Again, he palmed the front of his trousers.

“Well, when I didn’t hear from you this week, I thought maybe — ”

“I was just so busy with my paper,” she said. “It’s nearly done. Just putting the final touches on before I submit it to my advisor for a first look.”

“That’s really wonderful,” Dale said, and it was his turn to proceed reverentially. “I’m so proud of you.”

Audrey smiled. “Thanks.”

He gulped. “Audrey, I guess I came here because — ”  

Dale was cut off by the sound of loud, crackling electrical static. For a moment his heart shook in his chest, and panic filled him from head to toe. In his mind’s eye, he saw blood red curtains, and his nostrils filled with the horrible scent of scorched engine oil. The years between the last visit and now meant nothing; all it took was that sound to bring him right back to the last place he ever wanted to see.

“What was that?” 

“Oh Dale —it’s a CB radio. It’s not — ” Audrey turned back to him. “It’s nothing. There’s this solar storm, and it’s an old machine, and sometimes it…” She lifted her finger, apology settling in her eyes as she stood torn between her duty to check the radio and her desire to comfort him through the fearful moment that was enveloping him. 

She chose the former. 

“Just...let me check it…one minute. I’m sorry.”

Dale worked to calm himself down as the reality of the moment settled on him.  _ A CB radio _ , he thought.  _ Static on a CB radio.  _ He closed his eyes and swallowed the bile that had begun to creep up his esophagus, and pressed each fingernail into the palm of his hand in slow succession, counting as he went.

He couldn’t be resentful of her over it, not after he heard the voice crackling in from the other end and realized it wasn’t electromagnetic interference but was an actual call, and by then he was listening to her work, picking up the microphone and starting to speak, though he couldn’t hear her words over the buzzing in his ears. He counted to ten, forwards and then backwards. He forced his breaths to match, reeled in the spiralling thoughts that threatened to steamroll him, and willed his heart to stop thudding within his ribcage, just like he’d been taught, by counsellors and meditation guides and his own experiences over the last several years… 

Eventually the room settled and came into focus, sounds relaxing, air still. He opened his eyes. He still had things to say, but words clumped at the back of his throat, heavy on his tongue; he swallowed them back too and stared instead at the flames leaping high into the chimney while Audrey’s soft voice floated into the front room on waves from the corner of the kitchen where she stood. It was starting to warm up considerably; he distracted himself by marvelling at Audrey’s ability to build a fire, a heretofore unknown talent she had. He wondered if the pile of wood on the front porch had been chopped and stacked by her, too, or if she had someone who did these things for her. Somehow he just couldn’t imagine Audrey wielding a hatchet.

Then again, there were a lot of things that Dale realized he couldn’t imagine Audrey doing — renting a cabin, writing her dissertation, not calling him for a week and a half… — and yet clearly she was doing them. 

From the kitchen, Dale heard Audrey’s tone grow hushed and he knew, instantly, that there was trouble. He couldn’t see her, but he heard the soft click as she replaced the microphone back on the CB unit, and the peculiar silence that followed didn’t put him at ease.

Audrey stepped into the doorway. From behind her, the coffee maker sputtered; its aroma entered the living room before her. 

“I’m so sorry about that,” she said. “The volume on that thing was up too high…I know that sound — was it bad this time?"

Dale lied, shaking his head. 

“Dale?” she took another step towards him. “Tell me…”

“No, it’s okay,” Dale replied, changing the subject. “You have a CB radio?”

Recognizing defeat, Audrey nodded. “The phone lines down here aren’t always reliable, especially in winter. If there’s an emergency or something — ”

“Was that an emergency?”

Audrey rubbed her hands together. “The airstrip,” she said, twisting the pinky finger of her left hand between her thumb and forefinger of the right. A nervous habit. “There’s a blizzard coming in,  _ obviously _ , and he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to fly out at all tomorrow.”

Dale heard the words, but his ears began buzz once again and his vision tunneled as she spoke.  _ Snowed in? On Christmas? _

The words that came out of his mouth were not the ones he expected to say; nor was the tone he said them in the tone he should have used. He knew that. He knew it before the words landed against the backs of his teeth and spilled out onto the woven rug at his feet. He was powerless to stop it, the rising tide of his own resentment supplanting the panic from moments before.

“I suppose that suits you just fine,” he said softly.

“Pardon me?”

Dale stood up, feeling an uncharacteristic indignance prickle beneath his skin. “Well, it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow, and looking around here it’s pretty obvious you have nothing packed…” he said. “Not that you told me for sure you were coming home anyway, but — ”

“Dale, _of course_ I was coming home,” she said. “I just — well, I got sidetracked, and then I had this phone call with my advisor scheduled and I had to be at the university all morning, so — ” She stepped into the living room. “I was going to pack everything tonight. Charter a flight tomorrow.”

“Well that’s not happening, is it? Not now.”

“Dale.”

He felt his face and chest growing warm. “I didn’t plan on spending Christmas here, Audrey,” he said. “But now that’s exactly what’s going to happen, isn’t it? We’re snowed in?”

Audrey didn’t say anything for a long time. “None of this is my fault, Dale. I can’t control the weather.” 

“I didn’t say that you could.”

“And it’s not like you  _ had _ to fly up here,” she replied. “We didn’t exactly discuss that.”

Dale sighed. “We haven’t discussed much of  _ anything _ lately.”

Audrey’s eyes locked on his and for a moment he detected something soft in hers, remorseful and quiet. But it didn’t last; with alarming quickness, she started to fume. He could sense it. And he hated it. She was dangerous when she was like this, hands on her hips, neck long, eyes squinted. She was beyond angry; she was hurt. He braced for the worst.

“I don’t know what you expect me to say to any of this.”

Dale didn’t have an answer for her. He rocked from one foot to the other, utterly adrift, but knowing that he couldn’t push too hard, not right now, not without caution. Even willows snap under too much pressure applied too quickly, and even in his state, he knew he’d never forgive himself if he hurt her now.

“This was a mistake,” he said finally, making his decision. He crossed the space between him and his suitcase and lifted it to his side. “I’m sorry.”

“Where are you going?”

He shrugged. “Out,” he said.

“Dale!”

But he didn’t say another word. He grabbed his coat, put on his boots, and stepped onto the porch. The heavy door slammed shut behind him seemingly of its own accord, and he was locked out, in the cold, instantly feeling foolish and impulsive but too proud to turn around and knock on the door and test his luck inside the cabin. 

Remorse set in. He stared out over the snowy expanse in front of him, desolate and cold, windswept by the storm that had just passed and likely readying for the one that he was certain was on its way. For as far as he could see in all directions, there was nothing. His eyes met an almost-unbroken horizon line, punctuated here and there by a smudge of black from the silhouettes of small patches of trees, overcast by the muddy grey of storm clouds and the sepia tone in the distance from the street lights in Fairbanks. 

_ Nothing lives here _ , he bittered with a frown. He knew it wasn’t true, but he wasn’t in a position to argue with the resentment rattling in his head. Instead, Dale trundled off to his vehicle — a 4x4 with studded winter tires; all he could think about was what his father would say if he ever saw him driving a truck! — and swiped his gloved hand over the windshield, brushing off the layer of snow that had fallen since he’d parked it before getting in and turning the engine over. He didn’t really know where he was going to go. He’d seen hotels and motels near the airstrip, and if push came to shove and he hadn’t calmed down enough to face her, perhaps he’d try one of those. He didn’t need much: a roof over his head, a supply of coffee, and a bed. 

_ A cold bed _ , he thought,  _ without Audrey next to me.  _

As he made his way over fresh fallen snow in a truck he never imagined he’d ever be driving, Dale realized with great sadness that he’d gotten too used to that feeling.


	2. My Glass Is Almost Empty

“You’re Audrey’s fella, aren’t you?” the man at the other end of the bar asked.

Dale looked up from his coffee. For a moment the question didn’t register, and he stared at the patron blankly, as if processing speech for the first time. Eventually, his prefrontal cortex — exhausted from the trip and the eventual come-down from the emotional peak of his fight with Audrey — kicked into gear, starting with a simple quirk of his left eyebrow. “Pardon me?”

The man — middle-aged, portly, with traces of a stubbly grey beard and a ruddy-coloured Irish potato nose sitting square in the centre of his face, wearing a checked shirt and black slacks with suspenders — swiped his index finger over the tip of his bulbous nose before pointing it across the bartop at Dale. “FBI right?” 

“I’m sorry,” Dale said, sitting up straight as he looked at the man. “Do I know you?”

The other man stood up and walked the distance between them, his coffee cup in one hand, a friendly smile on his face. “Well not technically, but I feel as though I do anyway from all the stories Audrey’s told us about you,” he said as he came to stand next to the empty barstool on Dale’s left. He stretched out his hand. “Name’s Nick.”

“Dale,” he replied, shaking the man’s hand. 

“Mind if I join you?”

Dale shook his head and gestured to the stool, and Nick sat down. He glanced out the windows along the right side of the bar and let out a low whistle. “Nasty blizzard. It’ll take all day tomorrow to shovel everyone out, get the planes running again.” He turned to Dale. “I run my own snowplow business, see. Tomorrow might be Christmas Eve but it’ll be a workday for me and my boys.”

“How often does this happen?” Dale asked. "The snowstorms, I mean."

“Oh, about every few weeks,” he replied. “I thought Audrey was set to leave for Philly tomorrow, though on account of the storm I guess those plans got kiboshed.”

Dale sighed and looked down at his coffee mug, at the last, cold gulp of the stuff sitting at the bottom. “Guess so.”

Nick was silent and still for a long moment, his only motion being the lift of a finger to flag down the bartender, who promptly stopped by with a full carafe to fill up both mugs. Dale thanked him; he hadn’t actually wanted more, but truly, he wasn’t going to turn down coffee.  _ Not after the day I’ve had… _

“So what brings you to fair ol’ North Pole?”

Dale turned his head and looked askance at the man beside him with a chuckle. “I thought this was Fairbanks?”

“Well  _ technically  _ this  _ is  _ the metro Fairbanks area but —” Nick smiled and slapped a hand on Dale’s shoulder. “Well hell's bells, Dale, you didn't know you were in North Pole, Alaska?” 

Dale shook his head. “I’m spending Christmas in North Pole,” he said, taking a sip from his coffee. “What are the odds?”

Nick turned to his own coffee and reached into the breast pocket of his shirt to retrieve a small flask, which he uncapped and tipped into his mug. Dale watched him intently, his nose tickled at the scent of peppermint schnapps. He smiled.

“Ssh,” Nick urged conspiratorially, tipping the flask in Dale’s direction. Dale waved him off. Nick recapped the bottle and slipped it back into his pocket. “Takes the edge off the cold. I’ve got a full night’s work ahead of me, after all.”

Dale glanced at his watch. “Well, I should stay sharp. I’ve got to head back to the cabin and—”

“Whoa, Dale,” Nick said. “That road’ll be nigh impassible by now. We’ve had a foot of snow fall in the last hour alone.”

Panic stricken, Dale looked back outside and then uselessly again at his watch. “Damn,” he said. “Well isn’t that just the icing on the cake…”

Nick furrowed his brow. “Now, now,” he said. “Where’s that famous Dale Cooper positivity Audrey keeps on telling us about?”

Dale shrugged. “I think it up and left the moment I realized I was losing her.”

He had no idea where the impulse had come to suddenly open up to a perfect stranger, and for a moment his face pricked with embarrassed heat. Nick grew silent, and for several seconds only the sound of country music could be heard filtering out of the jukebox. It was fitting: a lonesome cowboy going on about lost love. Dale hated the way he romanticized such inane situations, but in his current state of mind and suffering from fatigue as he was, he could hardly blame himself for identifying with the crooner.

“What makes you think you’re losing her?”

The sound of Nick’s voice broke through the fog that settled on Dale’s brain. Again, he shook his head in the negative. “Audrey told everyone here about her travel plans but she never told me,” he admitted, although he had to be honest: saying it out loud made him feel rather silly. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd? That I should be the last person to know what her plans are?”

“Is that so?” Nick asked thoughtfully, as though he hadn’t considered it but now that he had, his mind was changing on the subject.

Dale sighed. He didn’t want to change anyone’s opinion of Audrey. But at the same time, it was nice to have some sympathy cast in his direction. He took a sip of coffee — strong and black and piping hot. It seared the tip of his tongue and he clenched his jaw as he swallowed it down. “I suppose it’s not her fault. We hadn’t talked in a while, and uh...well…I guess I thought the worst, and flew up here to see it for myself that she’s not coming back home.” He gestured to the window. “And now it’s all this.”

Nick nodded. “So let me get this straight: ‘the worst’ in your mind is that Audrey won’t come back to Philadelphia?”

Dale nodded. “I can’t lose her again…” he whispered.

“Again?” Nick asked.

But Dale didn’t respond, lost in his thoughts and worrying about a future that might never come to pass. He hadn’t truly lost her before — he didn’t have her to begin with, and maybe he never had; he didn't _own_ her and he'd be the first (after Audrey) to correct anyone who said otherwise. So it was a poor choice of phrasing on his part. But that’s exactly what it felt like: like he  _ was _ losing her. Just as he’d feared, in the nightmares that used to plague him, that  _ still  _ plagued him from time to time, and which had been made manifest upon her lack of communication, which felt to him like she was pulling away. How could it not? Their daily chats had become uncharacteristically cold as they'd dwindled to every two days, then once a week, happening in the distance between timezones, over crackled phone connections that spoke louder than they did. Seeing her cabin still in a state of disarray had sealed it for him. She hadn’t packed a thing. She’d had no intention of flying home tomorrow.

_ Even if she claims she was going to _ ...

He sat up and turned to the man next to him. “How do you know so much about Audrey?”

Nick chuckled and leaned back as far as he could without tipping over backwards. He slipped a thumb beneath one suspender strap. “Well it’s a small town,” he said. “And Audrey likes to talk. She’s in here about once a week at least for breakfast, before she heads up to the university to pick up new books or telephone her advisor down in Philadelphia.”

Astonished, Dale shook his head. Audrey had never been one to so openly socialize before; she was only just warming up to their neighbours in the building back home, and they'd been living there for years. It seemed so unlike her, unless it really _was_  her and Dale had no idea who she was at all. He really had no idea which option he preferred — that she'd come out of her shell after four months apart, or that she'd been hiding her true nature from him for five years. 

“I had no idea,” he said sadly. “She never told me any of this.”

“Really?” Nick asked, his face contorting. “That seems unlike Audrey, to be so reticent.”

Dale sighed. “ _ Very  _ unlike her…”

Nick clucked his tongue and looked into his pepperminted coffee. “She is so proud of how well you two communicate,” he said. “It’s all she talks about, really, aside from her research. How you two can even communicate in dreams, sometimes.”

Dale felt his stomach knot.  _ Once upon a time _ , he thought. “That feels like forever ago.”

Nick shook his head. “It sounds like it’s a powerful connection.”

“Maybe it was,” Dale offered.

“Oh, I think it’s still there,” he said. “Two people as strong as you can make it through just about anything. You just have to believe.”

Dale chuckled in disbelief. “Like clapping if you believe in fairies?”

Nick’s demeanour changed on a dime, from joyful to severe, and with a tone of absolute seriousness he asked: “Well that’s how it works, isn’t it?” 

Dale stifled the remaining laugh that lingered in the back of his throat, drowning it with a swig of coffee. As he set it down on the bar top, he blew out a sigh. “Might as well take a shot of the schnapps then, Nick. Since I’m not driving anywhere tonight.”

His companion smiled, erasing every last trace of his previous earnestness as he removed the flask from his pocket once again, covertly pouring a jigger of the minty spirit into Dale’s mug. Dale couldn’t help but smile as the cool vapours reached his nose once again. He lifted the mug to his lips and took a pull, delighting in the decidedly Christmas-y sensation that filled his mouth.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Cooper,” Nick said as he put the flask away. “If Audrey did decide to stay here, it would hardly be the first time.”

Dale pulled the mug from his lips. “You’re not helping,” he groaned.

“I don’t mean it as a slight, my friend,” he said. “I just mean that everyone here is from somewhere else, except for the Inuit.” He paused before adding: “And me.”

“You’re a real born and bred local then?”

Nick inhaled and stroked his chin, the bristles of his silvery-grey beard scratching against his fleshy palm. “I took my first breath here, and I suspect I’ll take my last here too,” he smiled. “North Pole, cradle to grave.”

Dale thought about growing up in a place where it’s mostly dark for half the year, where the average temperature hovers between  _ inhospitable  _ and  _ uninhabitable _ for half the year, where the population density was so low that you could probably, feasibly, go days without seeing another human if you didn’t leave your house, which was entirely possible considering the raging blizzards every few weeks that threatened to snow you in completely. His blood chilled, and he felt a curious depression settle into his bones. 

“How do you do it? Live here, I mean?”

Nick shrugged. “I might ask you the same question,” he replied. “I could never live in city. Too many people.”

Dale furrowed his brow as though he’d never considered it from that angle before. He loved the city; the sound of traffic could lull him to sleep like no other. As much as he enjoyed the quiet and the solitude of nature, after his ordeal in the woods and the subsequent and violent return to the ugly world he’d encountered there, he was no longer as enamoured with trees and open skies and starry nights as he’d once been. Adding the spectre of loneliness and isolation and the extreme cold and it was a recipe for nothing good. 

“But the cold, and the darkness…”

Nick’s smile was broad. “Ah, but the sun needs his rest, doesn’t he?” he asked. “He doesn’t sleep at all in the summer.”

Dale’s eyebrows lifted, surprised. “I hadn’t considered that either,” he said.  _ Endless summer days, midnight sunshine, no darkness... _

“Most people don’t,” Nick replied, shattering Dale’s misplaced focus. “But summers here are warm and so bright it hurts. And the rest of the year, there’s a community here to keep you warm, and if that fails…well we can all just ask Audrey to chop our wood for us.”

Dale chuckled again, and Nick joined in.  _ That answers that question _ , he thought, remembering the wood pile. 

After their laughter died down, Nick sighed. “But — and this is just my take on this situation, it’s not gospel — I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Not with Audrey.”

The sound of her name, the way Nick spoke it, sent firecrackers popping up and down Dale’s spine. With no effort at all, he could smell her perfume, the way the laundry detergent and fabric softener they used combined with it and the warmth of her body to create  _ home  _ for him. Just  _ home _ . A home that lived in the collars of her sweaters on her side of their closet and lingered on her pillowcase even after a long 134 days apart. 

A thousand memories from their long years together danced to the front of his mind: the first time she’d met his father; dancing with her in the rain on the Fourth of July, mere months after the ordeal in Twin Peaks; their first summer heatwave together in Philadelphia, when the air conditioner broke; making love brilliantly and intensely and as often as they could, because they both knew how quickly life could change, how precious today was. Dale’s stomach knotted with the sudden, terrorizing fear that his foolish actions that night had cost him more than he’d bargained for. 

Dale swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I don’t have to worry?” he asked, hearing the same thin tightness that had crept into his voice back at the cabin. He swallowed again and worked the muscles in his throat, coaxing them to relax and open, if only to take away from having to deal with the conversation at hand.

Nick shook his head. “Audrey thinks the world of you, Dale. If you didn’t screw up too badly earlier, I suspect she still does.” The other man side-eyed him. “Was it a bad fight?”

Dale scoffed.  _ I’m sitting in a bar alone in a strange town at eleven pm drinking coffee with alcohol in it provided by a total stranger with whom I’m suddenly sharing some of the most intimate details of my life _ , he thought, mentally ticking off the list of cliches.

Nick smiled. “Oh, we’re not total strangers, are we?” he said. “And where did all this pessimism come from?”

_ Good question,  _ Dale thought, though he briefly wondered how Nick had known what he was thinking.  _ You shouldn’t worry about losing Audrey. When did you lose yourself is what you should be trying to figure out. _

Meeting the business end of Windom Earle’s knife the first time had been hard enough to recover from; the second brush with his mad former partner had nearly broken him irreparably. It had been fully five years now —  _ To the day _ , Dale realized as a sickening feeling washed over him — since that attack, the one that had left him so badly injured and languishing in a hospital bed, all because he’d let his guard down, again, and it had all been because he’d been contented, again, by the love and presence of a beautiful, remarkable woman in his life. When he was finally cleared for work, he left the field entirely for a desk job, taking a position under Gordon as his Deputy Regional Bureau Chief. It wasn’t how he wanted his career to end, riding the pine instead of getting his hands dirty on cases as a field agent, but two close calls in one year had shifted his baseline so badly that he could barely stand anymore; between the anxiety attacks and the nightmares, he was shocked that he was able to get out of bed in the morning at all sometimes.

But none of this had stopped Audrey. He couldn’t forget that, twice in one year, her mettle had been tested; not only had she pulled through, she’d  _ thrived _ . He’d been attacked and she’d taken the shot; if it hadn’t been for her quick thinking, her natural instincts, he was certain that his deranged ex-partner would still be out there, and he and Audrey would both be dead. Windom Earle had underestimated Audrey Horne, and even after all they’d gone through up to that point, so had Dale. Because when it was all over she went right back to school, powered through the rest of that semester, and decided soon after that she wanted to fast-track everything, because the sooner she graduated, the sooner she’d be able to join the FBI and fix everything that had gone so wrong. 

Those were  _ her _ words. 

And she did all that while he was recovering  _ physically _ from the stabbing, and then for the next year when he was recovering  _ psychologically _ from the breakdown that followed. And for the subsequent years of therapy and mood swings and sleepless nights. And now…

Carrying the world on her shoulders was what she did, and he was her world, almost entirely. 

Just as she was his.

Now here she was, twenty-three years old, old enough to join the FBI finally and months away from graduating with a Masters Degree in Criminal Psychology, writing her thesis in the quiet solitude of the Alaskan wilderness over four thousand miles away from where she started it. She’d put herself through school and supported him on his path towards wellness, almost entirely on her own. Dale wouldn’t have blamed her if she finally decided that enough was enough, that it was time to leave him, and moved as far away as possible, to the most remote corner of the United States. He could almost see it happening. That was the thing: seeing her here, her stack of firewood, hearing the stories about how well she fit into the community...it was all-too-easy for him to imagine that this possibility wasn’t just on her mind but that it had  _ already happened _ .

And if it had, it was entirely his fault.

Dale sighed. “Nick, I don’t even know where to begin…”

As the music died down on the jukebox, and before a new one started up, Nick slid his barstool closer by an inch and lowered his voice. “You could start by not blaming yourself for everything.  _ Some  _ of the things, yes, but not  _ every  _ thing.”

Dale lifted his eyes from his coffee cup. 

“And you should accept that that woman out there by the Tanana River, your Audrey,  _ is  _ yours. She couldn’t love you more than she does right now, and the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”

“But I got here and she wasn’t too happy about it,” he said. “And she  _ wasn’t  _ packed. You say she was set to leave tomorrow, but —”

Nick simply shook his head. “Dale…you’re a man of the world. A man of wisdom. You should know better than to try and guess a woman’s motives.”

Dale shook his head, confused. “But Audrey is —”

“Special,” Nick said, though that wasn’t how Dale was going to finish the sentence. Nick continued. “I know. But that’s all the more reason for you to understand that she has her own M.O. Her own way of doing things and relating to the world.” Nick sighed. “She’s been here, alone, working hard. This achievement, it means a lot to her. It’s the first time she’s truly done something for her. And she knows you’ve been struggling. She knows you’re relying on her to be the one constant in a life gone sideways. But it’s a lot of pressure on a young woman. A lot of pressure.”

Dale turned to Nick. “So what do I do?” he asked. 

Nick shrugged. “Be open, and patient. Honest. Kind,” he said. “Not just with her, but with yourself. You’re hurting too.”   


Dale nodded slowly. There was wisdom in the advice, though Dale wasn’t at all sure he was able to take it.

But Nick wasn’t finished. He waved his hands in the air in front of him. “Uncomplicate yourself,” he said. “Strive to be the easiest thing going in her life. Her sure bet, every time. And then do your best to live up to it. But remember that you’re human.” Nick shrugged. “So you might fall short from time to time. It’s not the end of the world if you do. But if you beat yourself up, you beat her up. And she doesn’t deserve that.”

“I know,” Dale said.

“And while you’re here,” Nick added, “Make the best of this situation. It’s not her fault, and I guarantee you she’d do the same for you if the boot were on the other foot.” He laughed. “And good golly, what’s so bad about Alaska at Christmas? You know they put on a pageant at the community centre on Christmas Day every year. Inuit creation myths and stories about the history of this land. And on New Years’ Eve —”

Dale shook his head. Christmas Day, he could handle. New Years Eve? “I don’t think we plan on being here for New Years’ Eve.”

The corners of Nick’s mouth quirked up. “Oh, that’s too bad. There’s a big solar storm. The chance of seeing the aurora are higher than they’ve been in a long time. Long time,” he said. “You think a countdown and fireworks are how to ring in the new year? Wait until you see the  _ arsaniit  _ at the stroke of midnight. It’s on a whole other level.”

Dale felt the cloud of his own pessimism and negativity dissipate, replaced at first with soaring regret and a reminder of the deep affection he had for her, and then with sheer panic.  _ How could I have been so stupid?! _

He shot up to his feet, nearly sending the stool toppling backwards in the process. “I have to get to her tonight.”

Nick just laughed. “I didn’t mean  _ tonight _ , Dale. The roads…”

Dale cringed. “You’ve got a plow, though, right?” he asked. “Can’t you plow a path through the snow for me to get through?”

Nick smiled. “I wish it were that easy, my friend, but the fact is: I’ve got a route to follow. Hospitals first, then around the emergency services, the main arterial roads…heading up to the river and back would take two hours or more,” he looked outside. “And it’s not even  _ stopped _ snowing yet.”

Dale groaned inwardly. “What am I going to do?”

“Look,” Nick said as he fished his hand into his pocket. “Your truck is already here. There’s no way you’re going to make it to a hotel — the nearest one is a fifteen-minute drive away in the best conditions and the roads, well…no, you’re going to stay here tonight.”

Dale stared at the man, shocked, as he pulled a set of keys from his pocket; the candy cane keychain emblazoned with ‘North Pole, AK’ thudded heavily against the bar top. 

“My apartment is next door,” Nick said, thumbing toward the wall shared by the bar and the building next to it. “Second floor, number seven.” 

Dale lightly fingered the keys. “Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure!” Nick replied. “I’m pulling an all-nighter with my crew anyway. Even if Rudy shows up and we’ve got a full team, all ten of us, to get our whole route done is gonna take time.” He sighed and smiled. “Fresh towels in the linen closet, blankets too, and there’s food in the fridge. Leave the keys here with the barkeep tomorrow morning. By then the snow will have stopped. We’ll get the passes cleared up for you to head back up to the river just in time for Christmas Eve.”

Dale’s heart sank thinking about leaving Audrey all night; would she even want him to return after what he’d said and the way he’d acted? But worse than that, the thought of returning to a dark cabin — no Christmas tree, no lights, no gifts, no anticipation for Christmas revelry — was heartbreaking. 

“I’ll radio up to the cabin myself to let her know where you are,” Nick offered, as if reading his mind. “You know, most of the stores down here are open tomorrow. A man with a plan could throw together quite the Christmas if he set his mind to it.”

Dale furrowed his brow. “How did you know — ?”

Nick just tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially and laughed. “I’ve got to go now, Dale. And I think you should get to bed yourself. I suspect it’s been a long day for you.”

He stepped back to retrieve his winter gloves from the end of the bar, where his coat hung on the stand, bright red and stitched with the name of his company. Dale watched as he assembled himself — gloves on, arms through the coat sleeves, zipped up to the chin. When he put his matching red cap on his head, he smiled at Dale. 

“Next door. Apartment number 7,” he reminded him, pointing at the keys on the bar. 

Dale tapped the candy cane. “Number 7.”

With that, Nick nodded. “Merry Christmas, Dale Cooper.”

“Merry Christmas, Nick.”

Dale watched as the man trod the floorboards between the bar and the door, where he disappeared into the cold Alaska night.

After settling his tab and collecting his things, Dale made his way to the apartment next door, where he found number 7 with ease. It was clean, comfortable; Dale was unsurprised to find that it smelled like peppermint, too. He reckoned the whole town probably did, if he were to stand outside long enough to find out. 

He found a towels for his morning shower and the blankets to make up the sofa for the night. His boots puddled on the rubber mat by the door, and his coat hung on the hook on the wall above them. A small gas fireplace warmed the room while he rested beneath knits and wool, a pad of paper on his knees, writing furiously by firelight. 

 

He didn’t sleep, not right away. But when he did, it was beside a list of things to do the next day…


	3. Morning Light Steals Across My Windowpane

It hadn’t been easy. The sun didn’t rise until almost eleven, and set again a mere four hours later. After tidying Nick’s apartment and leaving the keys in the bar downstairs as requested (the bartender from the night before wasn’t there; he left them with a confused but accepting staff member instead), and in that brief window of meagre sunlight — and for two dark hours on either side — Dale worked his way up and down the freshly plowed streets of North Pole collecting the things he knew would make an Alaskan Christmas possible. The pickings were slim — it was Christmas Eve, after all — but he managed to procure a meagre collection of niceties: a small box of Christmas crackers, two mismatched Christmas candles, some tinned vegetables and one of cranberry sauce, the last box of stuffing on the store shelf. The nearest Christmas tree lot had few serviceable trees left but Dale managed to buy some cedar boughs to go along with the decorations he found — a half dozen crimson ribbons, a box of golden glass orb ornaments, and one string of brightly coloured Christmas lights. 

The  _ piece de resistance _ , however, was the gift he’d bought for her: a pair of handmade moccasins, with beautiful beadwork and trimmed in rabbit fur, purchased at a local Christmas market, along with a matching mitten/earmuff set and a warm knit scarf. In all her years of complaining about Philadelphia winters, she had never broken down and bought herself any truly warm outerwear. He hoped this would change her mind.

He hoped all of it would change her mind.

The skies were clear and the moon was new; it was black above his head, and he knew that the lack of cloud cover meant that it would be much,  _ much  _ colder that night than it had the night before. Cold  _ and  _ dark. Impossibly dark. And lonely. These thoughts occupied him as he drove, silently, following the Tanana river to her door. But the farther he got from the twinkling lights of North Pole, the less sure of himself. By the time he pulled up to the cabin, he was a bundle of nerves. 

It didn’t help that the lights were off on the house. The heavy curtains were all drawn. Nothing stirred. The place looked entirely deserted. 

With trembling hands, he keyed off the ignition.  _ Did she leave? Where could she have gone? _

Getting out into the snow, Dale hesitated, and for a long time he stood there in the unending silence of the Alaska night, staring at the cabin. It didn’t take long before his toes began to tingle, and the tips of his fingers began to cramp, going numb from the cold. His hands shook, half from cold and half from the intense fear that suddenly gripped him, of loneliness and the far-reaching solitude that this place engendered. 

He was facing two of his biggest fears — the dangerous unpredictability of the natural world and its hidden inhabitants, and losing Audrey — in the same go. Slowly, he counted backwards from ten, matching his breaths to the numbers, hoping to head off his panic.

Slowly, determined, he grabbed his haul — bags from two grocery stores, decorations from three home stores, the cedar boughs, Audrey’s wrapped gift — and, balancing precariously, made his way up the path to the front door, listening optimistically for sounds of life within.

As he reached the top step, the lights came on around him. Lining the eaves and around the windows, glass bulbs in every colour imaginable blinked into existence. Awed, he took in the sight around him. Surely these lights hadn’t been up the day before...had they?

With his free hand, he reached for the door handle; it gave way, and he pushed it open to find Audrey standing on the other side, her hand on the knob, a worried smile on her face, framed by the doorway and backlit by the warmest Christmas scene that Dale had ever laid eyes on.

It was a lot to take in. The lights were low, and scented candles covered almost every horizontal surface, casting a warm glow into the darkest corners of the room. A warm, blazing fire sat in the hearth and, next to it, a small artificial tree glittered with tinsel. Beneath it, wrapped in shiny paper, was a small gift box. 

The cabin smelled heavenly; between the wood on the fire, the spicy scent of cinnamon and sweet berries from the candles, and what definitely smelled like roast turkey, he couldn’t decide what was the most enticing thing to greet his nose. 

It was almost too much. His eyes pricked with tears unshed as he stepped into the cabin and set down his parcels,  _ shushing _ the door shut behind him. “Audrey, I’m so sorry…”

She didn’t hesitate, stepping into the chasm between them to pitch her arms around his neck as he stood up to his full height. “No,  _ I’m  _ sorry.”

Dale pushed away and held her at arm’s length. “What on  _ earth  _ could you  _ possibly  _ need to be sorry for?”

Audrey shook her head. He saw her eyes filling with tears as she did, before she lifted her hands to his face, cupping his cheeks and recoiling in shock. “You’re so cold!”

He smiled and placed his hands on top of hers, then brushed his fingertips against her cheeks, through the tracks of her tears. “You did all this?” he asked, glancing around the room before landing on her face again.

Audrey nodded and sniffled. “Called in a few favours. My landlady had a tree and lights. Some of the candles were here already but my neighbour down the highway brought over some of his extras, the scented ones.” She gestured into the kitchen. “I had a couple of game hens in the deep freeze, and a few chicken breasts we can do tomorrow. There’s no stuffing. No one could track any down — ”

Dale broke from her arms and reached down into the plastic bag from the grocery store, retrieving the boxed stuffing he’d bought earlier that day. “I’ve got that covered,” he said.

Audrey laughed, covering her mouth with her hands. “You had the same idea?”

Dale nodded, lifting the cedar boughs into his arm. “I thought…since we’re here, and it  _ is  _ Christmas — ”

Audrey didn’t let him finish his sentence. Closing the gap between them once more, she sealed her lips against his and pushed him back against the door. Hunger that hadn’t been sated in four months stoked itself into a frenzied fever as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her body to his and they began making their own warmth, two against the cold, in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness.

Dale hauled Audrey into his arms, ignoring the clatter of the grocery bags as they toppled and spilled their contents into the entryway of the cabin. She giggled against his mouth, and he carried over the mess and towards the fire and the soft couch opposite it.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered against him, her fingers working open the buttons of his dress shirt.

“Me too,” he replied.

They sank into the cushions. She pulled him down on top of her; he lifted the hem of her blouse, untucking it from the waistband of her skirt.

“I’m so sorry,” he told her.

“Don’t be,” she replied. She wriggled her own skirt over her hips until it slipped down over her thighs and pooled on the floor beside her. While he unbuttoned his trousers and freed himself from their confines, she repositioned herself, quickly and fluidly claiming the spot she wanted: sitting up, leg over his hip, pinning him to the sofa back, straddling his lap, all in one smooth movement.

Dale looked up at Audrey. She’d stolen his breath, his beautiful Audrey, lit by the ambient glow of the fire in the hearth and the lights on the tree, and he was utterly transfixed. He felt the warmth of her pressing against his lower stomach. He took a shaking breath.

“I love you.”

She cupped his face in her hands, erasing the worried wrinkles from the corners of his mouth, first with her thumbs and then her lips. Dropping her hand between them, she positioned herself above him, lifting her hips, arching her back, teasingly gentle even as his own hips canted desperately beneath her. She left slow and soft kisses along his jaw, up to his temple, across his brow, and down again until she back to his lips, chastely, delighting in the game, in the unintelligible sounds she pulled from his throat.

Finally, she stopped, poised above him, her lips on his. She whispered. 

“You’d better…”   
  


* * *

Wool blankets, woven rugs, and every throw pillow in the cabin lay strewn across the floor; a makeshift bed for the night they’d created for themselves. The fire still blazed, stoked to roaring strength by Audrey’s skilled hand. Next to it, and her, Dale was certain he’d never feel cold ever again.

“I feel so stupid,” Dale sighed. He rolled over onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “Flying all the way up here...panicking like that.”

Audrey sat on the floor beside him, with her back to the fire, surrounded by the crinkled and discarded paper wrapping from her gift. Clad from the waist up in only the scarf and the earmuffs, her skin glowed in the firelight. “If you hadn’t done that, you’d be in Philadelphia and I’d still be snowed in here, and we wouldn’t have been together on Christmas.”

“I suppose,” he said. He reached out and ran a fingertip down Audrey’s bare leg, from her knee to the fur trim of the mocassin on her left foot. “I can’t believe how I acted.”

Audrey shrugged and pulled the scarf down over her shoulders, wearing it like a shawl. “You can’t help it. When you get like this — ”

“But I should be better. It’s been years now.” 

“Five exactly.” Audrey lowered her eyes.

Dale shuddered through a sigh. “I should be better…” 

Swirling her hand over the blankets that had made the bed for their lovemaking, Audrey sighed. “Sweetheart, you know that’s not how it works.”

The affectionate term made his heart swell. He leaned back against the rough pillow behind his head and relished the warmth it created. But after a moment, reality kicked in. He wasn’t sure he deserved the epithet. “I don’t have an excuse for what I did, how I acted,” he said flatly. “I just…panicked.”

Audrey nodded, as if she’d been wise to his predicament all along, when he himself was still trying to figure it all out. 

“I know,” she told him.

Dale turned to face her. “I thought I was losing you.”

Her smile was bright; she reached out to him, stroking his arm. “That’s  _ never  _ going to happen,” she said. 

He caught her hand in his and lifted it to his lips. In the warm glow of the flame, the faint pattern of scars on her palm shone silver; a lasting, permanent reminder of the first trial they’d been through. He traced one line, from the fleshy pad at the base of her thumb to the tip of her ring finger. 

Audrey saw him looking and moved to pull her hand away. “I was nervous too,” she said.

“What for?”

She shrugged. “I thought I’d be farther along in my thesis by now,” she told him. “I haven’t cut my hair in four months, I didn’t pack enough makeup and can’t order what I like, and I’ve put on about twenty pounds since I got here…” she sighed. “I thought about flying home, half-finished and unrecognizable, and meeting you at the airport, and the look on your face…” Audrey lifted her eyes to his. “I was going to come home, Dale. I promise you I was. It’s not like the city. Out here, I can call up a charter flight with a few hours’ notice. He — the guy at the airstrip, one of the pilots — he was going to fly me half way, into Canada, and then his friend was going to fly me the rest of the way to Philly. I was going to get there this afternoon. I swear.”

“But all your stuff — ”

Audrey nodded. “I was going to pack what I needed but I half-expected I was going to have to come back anyway, and I didn’t know how to tell you…”

Dale once again reached for her hand, and this time Audrey didn’t immediately pull away. Treading with caution, he simply held it in his. 

“Audrey…”

She shrugged. “The deal was four months. I was supposed to have the whole thing finished in four months.”

“If you need more time — ”

“What about what  _ you  _ need, Dale?” she asked. “You might not want to admit it but you  _ need  _ me around. You flew up here two days before Christmas because you were worried I was going to  _ settle down here _ .”

He felt his face blush. “I know. It’s stupid…”

“But that’s just it — ” she said, gripping his hand in hers. “It’s not stupid at all. You need someone, someone to be around when you get like this, to talk you down off the ledge. I love that it’s me. I  _ want  _ it to be me. If I have to stay here for any longer, you’ll go crazy…”

“ _ You _ need to finish this, Audrey,” he told her flatly. “This is the first thing you’ve done  _ for you  _ since we’ve been together. I’m so proud of you, really I am. And if you don’t finish it,  _ especially  _ on my account...gosh Aud, I don’t even want to think of it.”

“I’ll finish it!” she said. “I can go to the library. I can soundproof the apartment so I can focus during the day when the Whitelaw kids next door are home. I can buy a white noise machine to keep the traffic noise from distracting me the rest of the time!”

“Or you can take the time you need, here, where you’re comfortable, with your routines and your systems and everything you need to get the best work done.” Dale squeezed her hand and traced his eyes around the fireplace, to the mantle and down again. “And who knows? Maybe I could stay with you,” he offered. “For a while, at least.”

Audrey’s eyes shot up to his. “What?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I could get used to it. The quiet. The cold,” he looked at her. “It would be an adventure.”

Audrey laughed. “But what about your job?”

Dale nodded, looking down at the blanket beneath him. “I’m not all that important to the bureau in my current state. Until I get the result of my most recent psych eval, I’ll be pushing papers…”

Audrey giggled and reached over behind her towards the tree and the small package still wrapped and with his name on it. She shoved it into his hands. “You never did open your present,” she said.

Confused by Audrey’s impulsive change in topic, Dale lifted the package to his ear and shook it in a show of guessing what it might be. “Any hints?” he asked.

She shook her head, her messy curls bouncing wildly about her head. “Open it.”

Dale slid his finger beneath the paper and carefully pried the tape away.

“Just rip it.”

He chuckled and tore the paper, slightly, to Audrey’s amusement. His heart soared; making her laugh was still one of the best things he did, hands down.

Before long, he was holding a small box in his hand. In the orange firelight, it was hard to make out the picture; he could only see the brand name on the side, and something about “electronics”.

“I weaseled it out of Albert,” Audrey said, rocking back onto her ankles, a self-satisfied smirk on her face as she readjusted the scarf around her shoulders. 

“Weaseled what?”

“The results of your psych eval. He wasn’t going to tell you until after the holidays, but I wanted you to be prepared, since you’ll be back in the field.”

Once again, his eyes shot up to hers, and then back at the box in his hands; the dark picture on the front became clearer.

“Is this…?”

“To replace the one that broke, back when — during the incident,” she said softly, slowly. She took a pause, a breath, and then pointed a long and unmanicured finger at the picture on the box. “It’s digital,” she told him, her voice cracking. “Has a really long battery life, twice what your old one had, so you can record hours and hours of case notes for Diane and you won’t have to worry about the batteries running out.” She smiled and pushed her hair behind her ears. “I bought it from a catalogue but the salesman on the phone assured me it’s one of their best models, top of the line, really.”

Dale felt a lump in his throat. He opened his mouth to speak, and nothing came out.

“Do you like it?” she asked, her tone betraying her worry. “Are you mad at me? I shouldn’t have pried into your evaluation. That was wrong of me. But I was just talking to Albert one day, and one thing led to another, and — ”

He shook his head. “Audrey...” he croaked. “It’s the most thoughtful…I’m really going back in the field?”

She nodded. “The job is yours when you want it.”

The thought of being a field agent once again had the curious effect of calming and frightening him. He hadn’t felt that was since he first started working for the FBI. It was exhilarating.

Holding the box in one hand, he reached out for Audrey’s once more. “I’ll go back when you finish your thesis.”

She smiled at him. “Deal.”

With a swift shake of his head, he leaned forward and captured her lips against his. “Thank you,” he told her as he broke away.

She kissed him back. “You’re welcome.”

As they kissed, a distant commotion outside sprang up. Explosive pops, faint cheering, the buzz of a noisemaker. Audrey pulled away with a smile.

“What’s that?” he asked.

She pushed herself to her feet and tiptoed to the shuttered living room window where she peeled back the curtain just enough to peek through. Bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet, she turned back to him. “The Arcands are setting off fireworks,” she whispered.

Dale was amused. “Fireworks?” he asked. “Aren’t those illegal in most counties?”

Audrey clucked her tongue as she bent to retrieve a wool blanket from the back of the couch. “Dale, for now, just pretend you’re not a Fed and enjoy this!” She threw the blanket over her bare shoulders. It fell to just below her mid-calf, obscuring all but her slippered feet. She raced to the door and threw it open to the Alaska night.

Dale jumped to his feet as the blast of icy air hit his skin. Grabbing another blanket from the floor. “A little warning next time!” he laughed as he stuck his feet into his boots and followed Audrey, who was already standing on the porch, staring off over the tundra. 

His boots crunched over the packed snow, quick and hasty as he tried to outrun the cold. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. Audrey barely moved, hardly shivering, already accustomed or maybe just not caring that it was as cold as it was. Stoic and self-assured, she projected an air of calm that seemed defiantly at odds with the survival instincts that forced shivers through Dale’s body. Still, he was stopped in his tracks at the sight of her. Strength, resilience, confidence; there was nothing that Audrey didn’t exude, but these were qualities that he was certain he’d forgotten she’d possessed in the months they’d been apart, qualities that living alone had stoked to brilliance within her. 

After all these years, she was still able to bowl him over completely.

The moonless night cast no light over the snowy ground, rendering the surrounding land in inky shades of grey and black and indigo. “Impossibly dark’”, the adjective phrase he’d used earlier, didn’t do it justice. He’d never seen anything quite like it. His slow footsteps eked out soft squeaks on the compact snow, alerting her to his presence at her side. He exhaled a long, deep sigh, releasing a warm cloud of breath that he could see for a moment hanging there in the dark air in front of him before dissipating. 

Two more pops, low whistles, an explosion of colour — brief, not very high, one red and one faintly yellow — pulled their attention beyond the line of trees to the north where the revelers were celebrating. Whoops and hollers came next.

“Dale!” Audrey hissed. “Look!”

He snapped back to attention, following her outstretched arm as she pointed to the sky. There, in the deep black firmament dotted with stars, he saw, for the first time in decades, and for the first time ever like this, the shimmer of the Aurora. Belts of colour, jade green and blue-purple, rippled overhead, fading in and out of view. It was enchanting, these wide swaths of silk being pulled across the sky, a ballet that had been ongoing for millennia and for which they had front row seats. 

Dale scooted a half step closer and drew his arms around Audrey.

“I’ve never seen them this bright before,” he said.

“We used to see them once in a while back home,” Audrey replied. “Maybe once a year, twice if we were lucky. But up here it’s…”

She trailed off, eyes cast high. She leaned her head back against his shoulder. “You know, the people who live here have all sorts of stories about the Northern Lights,” Audrey said, low and reverently.

“Is that right?” he asked, drawing his blanket close around them.

She nodded. “The Inuit think the lights are a big soccer game going on between the souls of their dead ancestors,” Audrey said. He could hear her smiling. “There’s this one guy, old, a for-real trapper whose whole family has been doing this for centuries. He told me that his people believe that the lights are a fire lit by the Creator as a reminder to his people that they’re loved and remembered.” She snuggled back against Dale’s chest. “That’s comforting, isn’t it?”

Dale nodded. 

Audrey continued. “Others believe that the lights are to help guide the recently departed to the afterlife. Or that it’s the spirits of their loved ones trying to communicate with them,” she said. “They say if you listen really closely you can hear the lights themselves.”

“What do they sound like?”

Audrey shrugged. “Crackling, I guess.” 

“Should we listen?”

Audrey nodded. For a blissful moment, they stood in total silence — and it was silent, as the grave, with not a sound for miles and miles — and Dale trained his ears heavenward, listening for something, anything. Eventually, the Arcand’s fireworks started up again, and the hollers took over.

“The locals like to say that the Aurora makes you have strange dreams and behave funny. But that stuff is all legend and myth, you know? I mean, scientists know that it’s all just charged particles being excited by solar winds and stuff like that,” Audrey said, pausing for a moment. “But then again, I guess we’re made up of all that stuff too, oxygen and nitrogen and all that. So maybe it is true?”

Dale kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad I’m here with you,” he told her. He knew his words weren’t enough. Standing beside Audrey gave him a strength he scarcely believed he could ever possess again. He watched the ghostly lights fade and play and dance to their mysterious rhythms in the Arctic sky and felt no fear. He couldn’t remember a time when that had happened.

Audrey half-turned, looking up at his face. “Me too.”

Dale bent down and kissed the top of Audrey’s head. “You know…I hear there’s quite a lot to do around here over the holidays,” he told her. “Maybe being snowed in here won’t be quite so bad.”

“Oh?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said. “There’s the Inuit pageant tomorrow night, and surely New Years’ Eve presents an opportunity for something fun.” He paused. “And even if not, this solar storm is supposed to be producing auroras for a few nights, so there’s always just sitting here with coffee and blankets and a front row seat…”

Audrey giggled. “How do you know so much about this already?”

“Well,” Dale replied. “I met your friend Nick at the bar last night and he told me all about it. Really nice guy, too. We talked and had coffee. He gave me some great advice, showed me the error of my ways.” He kissed her again. “That’s where I stayed last night when I couldn’t get here because of the snow, and —”

“Nick?” Audrey interrupted.

Dale nodded. “Yeah. Nick. I don’t know his last name, but…well he’s an older fellow, big guy,” he tried to get a read on her. “You know.  _ Nick _ .”

Audrey turned her bemused face up to look at him. Dale felt his own face grow red.

“Runs a plow service,” Dale continued before shaking his head. “You have breakfast with him once a week at the pub.”

Audrey laughed. “Someone’s playing a joke on you, Dale,” she said. “I don’t know anyone named Nick, I promise you, let alone someone I have breakfast with on the regular.”

Dale furrowed his brow. “This guy knew everything about you, and a lot about me too,” he said as the mild horror of it all sunk in. “We talked for half an hour. He gave me alcohol. And now you’re telling me you don’t know who he is?” he scratched his head.  _ How stupid am I? _

“Don’t worry about it so much,” Audrey said. He heard her smile bending her words into pleasant shapes as she spoke them.

It did little to mollify him. “I slept on his couch, Audrey!”

Audrey simply laughed. “But you’re here now, and that’s the important part,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe he was some kind of guardian angel. Like Jimmy Stewart had in  _ It’s a Wonderful Life.  _ You did say he showed you the error of your ways, right?”

Confused and disturbed didn’t quite begin to describe Dale’s feelings in that moment, but Audrey’s sweet pacification allowed him the space to not have to think about it. She settled back into his arms as he looked up again at the lights in the sky, swirling and churning like ribbon candy and so close he wondered if he might be able to grab a piece and stick it in his pocket for safekeeping if he tried hard enough.

A bright streak of light — a shooting star, or the breakup of some celestial body in the Earth’s atmosphere — momentarily distracted him. He followed it as it traced a curved path across half the expanse of sky, and suddenly found his thoughts bent towards Santa Claus, circling the globe, delivering presents manufactured right here in North Pole.  _ Well, not this North Pole,  _ he thought, _ but _ …

“Wait a minute,” Dale whispered. “Nick?”

_ No _ , he thought.  _ There’s no way... _

Somewhere in the distance, Dale heard someone yell “Merry Christmas.” The sound travelled far in the stillness; before he knew it, a second “Merry Christmas” was shouted into the night. And then a third. Audrey was next, cupping her hands to her mouth and shouting her greeting to the world with a grin and a laugh.

When she finished, she turned to face him, looking up from beneath eyelashes gathering snow crystals. She beamed. “Merry Christmas, Dale Cooper.”

Dale pushed every other thought from his mind as he adjusted his grip on the blanket that circled them both, drawing her closer in the process. When he bent to kiss her, her nose was frozen but her lips were warm. He smiled in spite of himself, in spite of the confusion and the upset of the last 24 hours, and for the first time in ages he let himself persist in the belief that maybe everything was going to be okay after all.

When he pulled back, Audrey was still smiling at him, giddy and bouncing on her toes. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

Easy, smiling, heart-full and filled to the brim with contentment, Dale simply smiled. 

“Merry Christmas, Audrey," he said.


End file.
